


Grace

by Beautiful_Dreams



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 00:22:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10685931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beautiful_Dreams/pseuds/Beautiful_Dreams
Summary: <3 “Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.” - Leo Tolstoy





	Grace

 

* * *

 

In a perfect world, she would've taken one look at the girl and known who she was; who she was going to be.

 

In a perfect world, Jack wouldn't have let go. 

 

In a perfect world, she would've remembered her cell phone.

 

In a perfect world, she would've been charming to the girl's parents and kind towards her own. 

 

In a perfect world, she would've kept quiet on her heart's desires. Friendship was enough.

 

In a perfect world, she wouldn't have controlled the feverish dogs who bit at her ankles, begging her to leap up and prove that love was physical, first and foremost. 

 

In a perfect world, she would've never taken the fall. 

 

But the world wasn't perfect. 

 

* * *

 

 

 Something special must've happened the day they met. 

 

Emily knows this to be true though she can't quite explain how or why. The day she met Grace never stood out much in her memory because she felt as if she had always known the girl, always known her familiar smile, always known her dancing eyes and comforting scent and endearing laugh.

 

And yet Grace was perfect in every sense of the word. 

 

When Emily met Grace, she finally understood why people referred to God's forgiveness and benevolence and love not by any of those terms alone, but by His _Grace_. 

 It made perfect sense. Why not just use one term to describe everything right about the world? 

 

Grace was hilarious, quirky, witty, intelligent, athletic, caring, kind, musical, a good conversationalist who cared about what people had to say, laid-back, brave, loving, loyal, hardworking, down-to-earth, creative, humble, trustworthy, a lover of children and animals, graceful in everything, impulsive and quick to anger. The last two might have been considered flaws if Emily did not argue that they were the symptoms of a sharp and brilliant mind. 

One more adjective completed the list: Grace was beautiful. Body and soul. 

It wasn't so much that Emily thought about these things consciously. Rather, they just sort of popped into her head like random flashes of light that couldn't be ignored. They were simple observations that could be made by anyone, devoid of emotion. It wasn't the idea of her that captured Emily's attention. It was her. 

 

Then Emily fell in love with Grace.       

 

In the beginning, she had hoped it was just hormones; had prayed that it was just a particular biological imbalance of neurotransmitters that were taking away her sanity. They were best friends, of course, their closeness was bound to manifest itself in affection. She had expected so. Every plausible excuse seemed to offer some refuge against the torrent of emotions that were threatening to spill her over something dark and unknown. But as the months passed by, and their friendship withered into a remnant of what it once was for what seemed like no reason, she realized it was futile. 

Alone in her room at night, she wondered whether Grace still remembered their late night conversations on everything and anything that came to mind, the Romeo and Juliet references (she still wanted to act out the entire play with her one day), the constant physical contact, the jokes, the uncontrollable snap-chatting. The economy that they joked was based on their love had failed. Friendship was a joke. Love was a joke. Life was a joke. Everything was a joke, really. 

The constant "I Love Yous" died on their lips and paranoia set in. 

Suddenly, every action was two. Every gesture held meaning, every look, a declaration of love or hate or jealousy or passive-aggressive anger. There was no middle ground. Innocent jokes gave rise to words. Words gave rise to thoughts. Thoughts gave rise to meanings, whether real or imagined, it didn't matter. 

And instead of giving Grace the necessary space she needed, Emily tried harder. She clung tightly to something she shouldn't have even touched, a desperate hope that was more destructive than uplifting. She followed Grace everywhere like a lost puppy, terrified of the strange distance that had sprung up between them. 

What could she do to get her best friend back? What could she do to explain the words and actions that sometimes did not seem to belong to her, but someone posing as her?

She was at a loss, grasping at straws with the distress of a drowning man.

 

Without warning, it came to her. 

 

What if Grace had loved her back? What if the beautiful girl was silently suffering the same delirium she was? It would certainly explain the coldness. And all this suffering and anguish would be wiped away; washed away by the shore of an endless tide bearing new hopes and happiness. All she had to do was let her know, right? And find out how Grace felt in return. Communication was always the key, wasn't it?

 

But she was wrong. _Foolish_ to believe that mortal plans would ever succeed. 

 

So what if Grace was supposedly bad at "talking about this kind of thing," so what if she was asexual? 

 

Their love would have transcended those issues: They didn't need communication to love, they didn't need sex to feel complete. Why didn't Grace even want to take the chance?

 

And for days after, Emily's head was spinning. Anger, resentment, self-pity, despite outwards appearances of being completely put-together. It had felt so easy, so natural being with Grace, a feeling that couldn't be matched with anything or anyone else. Now the rejection stung as if it were an iron rod that had been smacked across her face, not mere words smacked across her heart. 

So denial was the answer. Yeah, that was it. Maybe Grace was just in denial of her feelings and didn't want to admit it. Happened all the time she told herself. The only way she could truly find out if Grace even held an inkling of a spark for her was to do something completely rash, something that tested her immediate reaction. To kiss her would've been the best choice. Plus, she was curious about those rosy-red lips. They were shaped like miniature cupid's bows, plump and soft-looking with a nice little arch in the middle. When Grace pursed her lips, it was difficult not to stare. 

 

It didn't work. 

 

And Grace and Emily were no longer friends. 

 

Had it been clear that she wasn't interested? Emily asked herself the question everywhere she went. In her Chemistry class, in the shower, while making a sandwich... Was it really as apparent as Grace had made it seem? After they had held hands walking to the library or snuggled up after those confessions? By now, Emily was too exhausted and emotionally drained to conjure up any other elaborate schemes. It was a dangerous state of mind to be in. She came to believe that maybe the best solution to killing off her feelings was to twist them into something else, something that didn't resemble Love in the least, something that felt an awful lot like Hate. 

She left whichever room Grace entered; there was always something more important in the next. She always picked the furthest spot to sit; she wasn't feeling well. There was an invisible circle around Grace now, one within which she couldn't and wouldn't allow herself to cross.

 

The only habit she couldn't break was the gift-giving. Somehow, the very act of giving Grace a small treat -with only curt explanations- calmed her to no extent. She didn't know why. 

 

Then she acknowledged that self-preservation in the realm of love was an _art form_ , and a difficult one to master at that. A certain level of finesse was required to simultaneously assure their mutual friends that nothing was wrong whilst keeping herself together. That was the challenge. And Emily would've been content to remain in that state, the state of perpetual numbness, the state that was the best for everyone involved because no further injuries would've been sustained by either party -if only she didn't realize the meaning of life four months later. 

 Life was virtually meaningless, she realized. The fact that nothing one did in life mattered was not only a terrifying conclusion but an unthinkable one. How could life have no meaning? Wouldn't people just be aimless creatures doomed to roam the Earth and die, leaving the world with nothing less than it had before their arrival? The more she pondered the question, the more apparent the buried silver lining became. If life was meaningless, then there would be no consequences for failing material objectives. Didn't that mean then, that the only valuable things in life were intangible ideas? Love and friendship and happiness? The overall enjoyment of the journey? If this was true, then by causing her love so much unnecessary pain, wasn't she destroying the only thing that came close to the meaning of life, her and Grace's happiness? 

 

* * *

 

 

Emily reaches out to Grace like a child asking for a favorite toy, longing to feel her close again, but it is too late.

 

 Now she whispers "I'm so sorry," not into the ears of her former best friend, but to the silent, silent walls that trap her here. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> <3 “Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.” - Leo Tolstoy


End file.
